...Look, Deb, I'm a hummingbird!!!

Just when I was despairing of what to blip today, along came this little chickadee with perfect blip-behavior. Honestly, I have NO idea what he was doing, but he spent several minutes all over the salvia plant acting just like he was after nectar. Crazy thing. I think maybe he was trying to remind me that the hummers aren't the only adorable little birds in the backyard! He was right side up and then the next second he was ass-backwards. I couldn't help but laugh.

In less happy news, I noticed today that Papa Cardinal has some sort of pretty bad injury on his right eye, which is completely closed. It appears that his beak is slightly damaged too. I have send pictures off to a bird expert to see if she can render an opinion as to if he will survive. The good news is that he was still feeding his chick today, he seems to be able to eat without problem, and he is flying fine. But that eye looks awful. I won't share the pictures here because they will make you sad. I am told that many birds can survive just fine with one eye, so let's hope he is one of them, and that the injury isn't any worse. I wonder if it was the neighbor's damned cats. I don't think he feeds them regularly, and they are out in the woods all the time.

Other things I saw today...

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth on the Buddleia

a beautiful, if slightly tattered, Aphrodite Fritillary Butterfly

A new chipmunk, Ferdinand, scaling the sunflower "tree" Note: Mimsy has not been seen for several days. I'm worried, but keeping hope that she is busy getting her rock wall "cabin" winterized.

Thank you so much for the lovely comments, hearts and stars on the Cardinal family yesterday. It turned out to be one of my most popular blips which pleases me, since it was such a special thing to witness. I'm glad that I was able to share it with you all.

So, it's the weekend - hope you are all off to do some fun things, see some great things, take some great photos!